‘Scrooge’ NYC DOE Sends Holiday Invoices Demanding Cash From Unvaxxed Employees Fired During COVID; Jewish Leaders Hope to Ban Most Masks in Public in NY Next Year: ‘Nothing political about prejudice’, and other C-Virus related stories
‘Scrooge’ NYC DOE sends holiday invoices demanding cash from unvaxxed employees fired during COVID:
The city Department of Education has turned into Scrooge this holiday season, demanding cash from staffers it fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Social worker Diane Pagen, terminated three years ago for violating the city’s vaccine mandate, received an “invoice” after Thanksgiving from the DOE seeking $2,290, a sum covering her salary for 10 days in 2021 when she was ordered not to work.
Pagen, 54, called it a “shameful extortion” and “a shakedown.”
“What kind of upside-down clown world has NYC’s Department of Education become? This agency refused to allow me to go to work … and now wants to bill me,” she told The Post.
Pagen is one of 1,780 city employees — including 1,100 in the DOE — forced to leave on Oct. 4, 2021, because they would not comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
But the DOE kept them on the payroll until Oct. 15. Now it wants refunds for 10 days of salary from employees the city put on “involuntary unpaid leave” because they didn’t get vaxxed.
“The DOE made a huge mistake” by axing the staffers in the middle of a payroll cycle, said Betsy Combier, a paralegal who advised a teacher who received a similar invoice.
Pagen and others worked without pay through the spring break during the COVID shutdown in 2020. The teachers’ union later won an arbitration requiring the city to compensate any employee on duty during that time, even if they no longer work for the DOE.
“Why aren’t they calling Diane about the compensation they owe her?” asked Michael Kane, founder of Teachers for Choice, a group of city educators who oppose forced medical mandates. —>READ MORE HERE
Jewish leaders hope to ban most masks in public in NY next year: ‘Nothing political about prejudice’:
Jewish leaders say their top priority in New York next year will be to push Albany to pass a law to prevent most mask-wearing in public to thwart hate-spewing bigots and other criminals.
“There’s not a First Amendment right to harass people and commit serious crimes,’’ said state Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx), who is co-sponsoring a bill calling for such a mask ban.
“We will make it unlawful to hide one’s identity to harass, occupy and menace people with impunity,” said Dinowitz, saying such a measure is overdue, given the level of hatred, vandalism and intimidation waged against Jews after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, told The Post, “It’s our top priority in the legislative session in Albany.
“I’m optimistic it will pass, but it’s going to take work,’’ he said. “It’s going to take work to make sure legislators understand, on both sides of the aisle, that there’s nothing political about prejudice.”
Greenblatt, speaking at a Post editorial-board meeting, said civil libertarians such as the New York Civil Liberties Union have claimed such a ban would stifle the free speech of protesters and dissenters, including opponents of Israel.
But at least some mask-wearing protesters and vandals are emboldened to propagate hate because their identities are cloaked, supporters of the bill say.
“There’s freedom of expression. But intimidating people because of their ethnic or religious or any other type of identity is wrong,’’ Greenblatt said.
The proposed bill would exempt individuals who need to wear masks for health or for their religious faith or safety on the job.
Penalties for those who flout the measure and intentionally wear masks during hate-filled protests, acts of vandalism and other crimes would range from a violation to aggravated harassment, a Class A misdemeanor that could result in one year imprisonment, Dinowitz said. —>READ MORE HERE
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